Mphasis acquires US-based Blink for $94M

IT services firm Mphasis on Wednesday announced the acquisition of US-based Blink for up to $94 million (about Rs 694.3 crore).

Founded in 2000, Seattle-headquartered Blink provides design consultancy services around user experience (UX), user research-based software product design and strategy, and customer experience (CX) design for marquee brands.

With over 130 employees, Blink has additional studios in Austin, Boston, San Diego, and San Francisco.

"The acquisition closed on September 21, 2021 (PST) consequent to signing of the definitive agreement in nature of agreement for Plan of Merger between Mphasis Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company; a subsidiary of Mphasis Corporation; and Blink Interactive Inc," a regulatory filing said.

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Total consideration of the transaction is up to $94 million, including earnouts, it added.

The acquisition is expected to provide access to marquee logos, strengthen experience business and is leadership and revenue growth accretive, it said.

Mphasis CEO and Executive Director Nitin Rakesh said customer centricity is foundational to Mphasis and is reflected in its Front2Back Transformation approach.

"The acquisition of Blink, consistent with our M&A focus, is in the forefront of providing well researched design and high impact digital experiences to our clients and their end customers, he added.

The Total Addressable Market (TAM) for the upstream user research, strategy and design is growing 25-30 per cent per annum i.e., 4-5x the overall IT services market, he noted.

"There is significantly increased focus on customer/ user centered design in the current environment. The synergy opportunity set will revolve around Product, Experience, and Service design, as well as the end-to-end implementation services across the spectrum of clients and industries we service together, Rakesh said.

Blink CEO Karen Clark Cole said designing products that people use, love and remember is always the company's mission.

"We are so thrilled to now have Mphasis' engineering skills as part of our core, providing end-to-end services for our clients and following our designs through to launch," Cole added.